Psychology and mental health

Head injury and marital aggression

Article Abstract:

In the last decade, marital violence has begun to attract the attention of researchers and clinicians from a variety of disciplines and it has been recognized as a serious and common problem of society. A study was conducted of 31 male patients who had been referred for treatment following episodes of marital violence. Each year in the United States alone, it is estimated that close to two million women are abused by their male partners. More than 30 percent of the women in this country will be physically abused by their partners at some point. The social cost of this behavior has resulted in the identification of domestic violence as a top public health priority. Until recently, examination of the causes of marital violence has concentrated upon psychosocial factors. In this study the possibility of an organic cause for this behavior was considered and any history of previous head injuries was examined for possible association with aggressive behavior. No control group was used and the results were compared with statistics from the general population. Nineteen of the 31 men evaluated had histories of severe head injury, representing 61 percent, a proportion far greater than the rate of head injury in the general population, estimated at around six percent. Of these 19, 48.4 percent also had a history of alcohol abuse. A trend that was also observed but was not strong enough to be considered significant, was a tendency for these violent subjects to have been abused as children. Researchers felt that this preliminary investigation indicated that more attention should be given to the role of physiological factors in marital violence, as well as in other forms of aggression.